As an architectural student in 1997 I remember being angered by what felt like continual negative publicity surrounding the Millennium Dome and the association with the term ‘White Elephant’, this was not the first time I had heard the term associated with Architecture, I had also heard it associated with the Docklands in the 1980’s. With the benefit of hindsight this may be a symptom of a greater problem. The public mistrust of spending what is perceived as public money on ‘Architecture'. In the summer of 2011 I returned to the Greenwich Peninsula for the first time in nearly over a decade, the Millennium Dome, renamed the O2 and heralded as a runaway success, currently known as the North Greenwich Arena and venue for gymnastics in the London 2012 Olympic Games. My first encounter with the Dome was at Interbuild 1997, the model was on display and the Architect Mike Davies of the then Richard Rogers Partnership was giving a talk on architecture being fun, with some interesting insights into the genesis of what became the Dome. The first time I saw the Dome for real was in the summer of 1999, a visit to a family friend in Camberwell presented the opportunity to make a visit.
The sun begins to set behind the twin wind turbines of Chetwood’s Sainsbury’s ‘Energy Store’, a quick change of plan and a quick look around the project, timber strip and glass plank facades, aluminium roof, dynamic entrance, lots of natural light (even at dusk). The project seems to be popular with the locals. From this vantage the Dome becomes visible, although strangely in this light, it does not seem so impressive, the white Teflon seems to be grey. The area is still awaiting the completion of its infrastructure, a sea of tarmac, footbridges that lead to nowhere, well not exactly to nowhere, but at this stage a fenced off area at the back of a housing estate, signs directing nonexistent traffic, railings and pathways also leading to dead ends. Finally after trying various dead ends, the Thames footpath presents itself as being one and three quarter miles from the Cutty Sark, so it’s off through a narrow alleyway between what seems to be a petroleum plant and a chemical works, to the bank of the river. The water is flat calm with just enough movement to distort the reflections of the riverside buildings, under a yellow-green sky. The air becomes still, civilisation begins to light up in the distance as the sun makes the city towers become a silhouette as it disappears below the blocky horizon. With the acidic stench of the chemical works firmly in the air, the Thames path meanders its way past rusting iron half built barges and the remains of London’s waterside industry. Cesar Pelli’s off-the-shelf Canary Wharf tower seems awkwardly divorced from Manhattan, but with its pyramid roof illuminated, has a greater presence in dusk than in the daylight.
The Dome, in a view downstream, looks far more impressive than it did half an hour before. The red lights on the yellow masts with their own up-lighting, the cool glow of the Teflon and the bright lights in the twelve circular pods that line the circumference, give the whole area the impression of a space ship landing as the industrial decay disappears into the shadows. Civilisation again, the welcome sound of people laughing and chatting outside the Cutty Sark tavern, along with the chink of glasses as the night warms up. The path leads its way past the neoclassical naval buildings, as the small green dome atop the foot tunnel marks the end of the trek. The Thames Walk finally reaches the Cutty Sark, a magnificent tea clipper, sailing ship whose claim to fame is its role in the establishment of the tea routes to Sri Lanka, sitting proudly in her dry dock, looking every bit ready to put to sea, just some two hundred years late. The lift down into the Greenwich foot tunnel is out of action because we have arrived too late in the evening, so it’s off down the spiral staircase that coils round the lift shaft, worn concrete treads, black painted iron handrails, white glazed bricks line the descent into the river bank. Through the central iron cage parts of the workings for the lift are visible. A tube lined with glazed bricks makes the journey below the Thames, to what appears to be a rusting white painted cast iron sewage pipe though which you must enter to get to the corresponding lift shaft to make the ascent to the ground making the previous journey in reverse.
On the North bank there is a fault with reality. the spiral steps bring the visitor out into a park with the Thames behind, sense of direction from previous visits leads us to a hole, a great big hole, fenced off and looking every bit a building site where Island Gardens Docklands light railway (DLR) used to be. Not a particularly spectacular station if memory serves, the railway was elevated above the street, a blue steel and polycarbonate circular tower mimicked the cores that led to the foot tunnel. A spiral staircase coiled around a central lift shaft in a cobbled courtyard. Small shops occupied the spaces below the two arms of the railway, in pretty much the same way that Victorian viaducts have their arches occupied by all manner of activities. A series of signs indicate that a replacement bus service would take us a couple of miles to join the working part of the DLR. Apparently Mudchute Station had also been removed to make way for an extension to the railway to bring it in touch with the Millennium Dome and Village. The shuttle bus dropped us off at Cross harbour and soon enough the train arrived to take us on our way through the Docklands although not much to see in the darkness.
As the DLR threads its way past apartment blocks, the London Arena, office blocks, strong lighting announces the arrival at a deserted Canary Wharf, strangely the Dome looks larger from here than it did from the energy store, in fact it looks stunning as the last traces of daylight fade into night and the lighting takes over. In the docks, Chris Wilkinson’s dynamic bridge comprises of one section leading to nowhere, stuck on its own little island, the second section lies on a barge as this young urban fabric morphs as the tide of events changes its direction. Foster’s Canary Wharf underground station bursts out of the ground like a beautiful glass whale coming up for air in the middle of a park, isolated from the dockside by mounds of sand, stacks of sheet piling, tractors and diggers as the race for the millennium breaks for the weekend. Beneath a glass canopy spanning the chasm between Cesar Pelli’s mantle-piece and an anonymous office block, activities seem to have been suspended for the weekend. Outside the canopy, what resembles a snake slithering across the water among the barges, glowing green on its belly and white on its back, Future Systems’ floating bridge, leading nobody from the nothingness of Canary Wharf and deposits them in front of the concrete blocks and mounds of sand and the tower cranes of the dormant East India Quay development. The DLR goes to ground to link into Bank underground station.
Another disorientating tangle of tunnels and escalators leads up to the surface to be confronted with James Stirling’s last work in Lego with its clock face that looks more like the EU flag. A scan round reveals the city as being deserted, the former Natwest Tower, now known as Tower 42, shyly disappears in to the night, Sir John Soane’s Bank of England disappears into the background as the whole area is saturated with ornamental columns, capitals and pediments. At the end of the street a violet-blue glow issues from the doorway of one such façade by Sir Edwin Cooper, the façade is all that remains of the original building, whilst the current configuration of Lloyds of London’s Headquarters proudly supports its business behind. The paved street edge meets an elegant stainless steel balustrade as the ground drops away to a cobbled shelf with a single tree. A steel ramp curves playfully round the tree at a higher level, linking the street with the main entrance, although reading as an emergency exit. On the shelf the source of the violet-blue glow is directed up to pick out different areas of activity. The shelf slopes gently into the site where giant concrete columns disappear into an unseen netherworld, as though this unique jewel was planted a long time ago and has been recently excavated. A café sits on the shelf, although strangely its doors are closed at night, but there again in this ghost town, why should the doors remain open? The café appears to be at the centre of the site, the shelf continues to form a terrace, whilst stainless steel ducts occasionally puncture the cobbled surface. To the left of the tree four glass elevators sit idly in their tracks, each with two red lights at their base. Scanning round to the right the Cooper façade gives way to the distinctive staircases, unclad at this level, following the staircase up the façade the stainless steel cladding curls round to enclose the escape route. Above the café, stainless steel pods plugged into their concrete framework whilst glass panels give a hint of what might be going on inside. Following the street to the corner, the blue to the right and what appears to be a good copy of Mies’ Seagram building to the left. At the turning of the corner, the entrance to the site reveals itself, a broad flight of stairs ascends majestically to meet the building beneath an exquisite curved glass canopy. The violet-blue lighting washes the details in a cool glow, the canopy sails straight through the heart of the building whilst taking care of business manifests itself on either side whilst the concrete structure confidently holds all manner of pods panels and ducts in place. Further down the street, the cobbled shelf gives way completely to the underworld and the cables and guide tracks take the glass lifts down into the ‘dig’. Bikes are chained to the concrete framework although the owners are nowhere to be seen. A walk back through the stillness with the glow of Lloyds behind, between the decorated facades to rejoin the underground.
There is something about football results and alcohol that makes people think that they can defy the laws of physics. England, in the Euro 2000 qualifiers have beaten Poland 6-1. Whilst travelling upward on the escalator from Marylebone underground to Marylebone mainline station, the underground is a deep station, and hence long escalators. There were two guys on the downward escalator, celebrating England’s win ‘six one, six one…’ with a third guy thinking that it is a good idea to slide down the stainless steel division between the escalator and stair…on his feet, in surfing position. It was going pretty well up to a point, until he caught one of the signs on the division with his foot…surfing pose becomes aerial cartwheel, then a messy tumble, over and over he went, down, down before landing in a giggling crumpled heap at the bottom. So there you go…beer and high spirits = failure of the laws of physics.
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